Strawberry Milk and Chocolate Ho-Ho's

In Johnny Berlin, Jon Hyrns talks about life as a porter on a luxury train that runs through the American West. On of the advantages of the job is how hard it makes spending money, but that advantage creates the biggest disadvantage. The job and the life aboard the train is so all-consuming that it is impossible to accomplish anything else. "I was writing a book before I got on the train, haven't written a page."In fact, Jon ends up named after the car where he works, the Berlin car.

One of the advantages that Jon has when interacting with his customers on the train is his ability to tell a good story. In fact, Jon Hyrns managed to get a script made into a movie three years after this one appeared (Woodpecker in 2008). But that also means that Johnny Berlin is an unreliable narrator. The work itself is true. We see Jon at work several times. It is obvious that he knows what he is doing, and we do learn something about the luxury train business by watching him.

I would recommend this part. I like trains and stories of people working.

It is his personal life that is in doubt, especially the stories that he tells when he is not on the train. For example, he talks about using the money that he has saved to go to Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. But the airplane ticket that he buys goes to Bagkok, and he does not seem to know where Phnom Penh is or how to get there.

You can watch the entire movie on Hulu as Johnny Berlin, Part 1. The listing says that it is a clip, but the entire thing is there. (Johnny Berlin, Part 2 is a different movie.)

The movie was produced by Michael Stipe which makes it the second movie with his involvement that I have covered so far. I guess he likes slow, meditative movies about trains.